Haruki Murakami - Dance Dance Dance

«Nobody's forcing them to.»

«The funny thing is, I always get stuck playing a doctor or a teacher or somebody wholesome and respectable like that. I've played more doctor roles than I can count. The only thing I haven't been is a proctologist! Imagine how much fun that would be! But I've been a vet and a gynecolo­gist and of course I've been a teacher of every curriculum in the book. I've even taught home economics. What do you make of all this?»

«Well, obviously, you radiate trust,» I laughed.

«Yes, a fatal flaw,» Gotanda laughed back. «Once, I played this crooked used-car salesman. A bullshit artist with one glass eye. Boy, I had fun with that. The role had some bite to it, and I wasn't bad either. But no way. The letters came pour­ing in. It was too mean a role for the noble likes of me. Some­body even threatened to boycott the sponsor! Toothpaste, if I remember correctly. So my character got scratched in the mid­dle of the season. Written right out. A pretty important part, killed by natural selection. And ever since then, it's been doc­tors and teachers, doctors and teachers.»

«Complicated life.»

«Or a truly simple one,» he laughed again. «Anyway, today I was doing time as a dental assistant, studying tech­nique. I've been doing this for a while now, and I swear, I can probably do a simple procedure myself. The dentist—the real live dentist—even praised the way I handle the tools. I have this gauze mask on, and none of the patients knows it's me. But still, they all relax when I talk to them.»

«Can't stop radiating that trust, can you?»

«Yup, that's what I'm beginning to think. Matter of fact, I get to feeling so relaxed I wonder if I wasn't cut out to be a real dentist or a doctor or a teacher or something. I could've done that, you know. Maybe I'd be happier doing something like that.»

«You're not happy now?»

«Don't know,» said Gotanda, finger in the middle of his forehead this time. «It's this trust business I'm such a pro at. I don't know whether I trust myself. Everybody else trusts me, sure, but, really, I'm nothing but this image. A push of the button and— brrp!— I'm gone. Right?»

«Hmm.»

«If I really was a doctor or a teacher, no one could switch me off. I'm always there.»

«True, but even with acting, you always have to be there.»

«Sometimes I just get tired,» said Gotanda. «I get headaches, and I just lose track. I mean, it's like which is me and which the role? Where's the line between me and my shadow?»

«Everybody feels that way, not just you.»

«I know that. Everybody loses track of themselves. Only in me, the slant is too strong. It's, well, fatal. I've always been this way, since I don't know when. To be honest, I was always envious of you.»

«Of me?» I was incredulous. «Why the hell would you be envious of me?»

«I don't know, you always seemed to get along just fine doing your own thing. Didn't matter what others thought, you didn't really care. You did what you wanted, how you wanted. You were solid.» He raised his glass and looked through it. «I, on the other hand, was the eternal golden boy. I never did anything wrong, I got the best grades, I won elections, I was a star athlete. Girls liked me. And teachers and parents believed in me. How do things like this happen? I never really understood what was going on, but you sort of get into a groove, you know. You probably can't even imag­ine what I'm talking about.»

No, not really, I told him.

«After junior high, I went to this school that was big in soccer. We almost made it to the nationals. So it was like an extension of junior high. I kept on being good . I had a girl­friend. She was gorgeous. Used to come cheer for me at the soccer matches. That's how we met. But we didn't go all the way, as we used to say. We only fooled around. We'd go to her place when her folks weren't home and we'd fool around. We'd have dates at the library. High school days right out of NHK Teen Playhouse.»

Gotanda took a sip of whiskey.

«Things changed a bit in college. There was all this cam­pus unrest, the United Student Front. I got put in a leading role again. And I played the role all right. I did everything. Put up barricades, slept around, smoked dope, listened to Deep Purple. The riot squad broke in and we got dragged off to jail. After that, there wasn't much for us to do.

«That was when the girl I was living with talked me into doing underground theater. So I tried out, partly as a joke, but gradually it got interesting. I was this beginner, and I lucked into a couple decent roles. Pretty soon I realized I had a talent for that kind of thing. I'd have this role and I could actually make it work. After a couple years, people started to know who I was. Even if I was a real mess in those days. I drank a lot, slept around all the time. But that's how every­one was.

«One day a guy from the movies came around and asked if I'd ever considered acting on-screen. Of course I was inter­ested, so I tried out and I landed a bit part. It wasn't a bad part—I was this sensitive young man—and that led to some­thing else. There was even talk of TV. Things got busy, and I had to quit the theater group. I was sorry to leave but, you know how it is, you think, there's a big, wide world out there, gotta move on. And, well, you know the rest. I'm a doctor and a teacher and I hustle antacid lozenges and instant coffee in between. Real big, wide world, eh?»

Gotanda sighed. A charming sigh, but a sigh no less.

«Life straight out of a painting, don't you think?»

«Not such a bad painting, though,» I said.

«You got a point. I haven't had it bad. But when I think back on my life, it's like I didn't make one choice. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and it scares me. Where's the first-person 'I'? Where's the beef? My whole life is playing one role after another. Who's been playing the lead in my life?»

I didn't say anything.

«I guess I'm running off at the mouth.»

«Doesn't bother me,» I told him. «If you want to talk, you ought to talk. I won't spread it around.»

«I'm not worried about that,» said Gotanda, looking me in the eye. «Not worried in the least. There's something about you—I don't know what it is—somehow I know I can trust you. I trust you from the word go. But it's hard to be open with people. I could talk—well, maybe I could—to my ex-wife. For a while there, until everyone around us screwed up the works, we really understood and loved each other. If it was just the two of us, things might have worked out. But she was too insecure. She needed her family too much, couldn't get out from under them. So that's when I ... No, I'm getting ahead of myself. That's a whole other story. What I want to know is, is all this talk a drag?»

Nope, I said, not a drag at all.

After that he talked about our science lab unit. How he was always uptight, having to see to it that the experiment came out right, having to explain things to the slow girl. How, again, he envied my puttering along at my own pace. I, however, could scarcely recall what we'd done in science class. So I was at a total loss what there'd been to envy. All I remember was that Gotanda was good with his hands. Set­ting up the microscope, things like that. Meanwhile, I could relax precisely because he tended to all the hard tasks.

I didn't say that to him. I just listened.

At some point, a well-appointed man in his forties came up to our table and tapped Gotanda on the shoulder. They exchanged greetings and talked show business. The fellow glanced at me, pegged me immediately as a nobody, and continued his conversation. I was invisible.

When the fellow left, after a promise of lunch and golf, Gotanda fretted one eyebrow a few millimeters, raised two fingers to gesture for a waiter, and asked for the check. Which he signed, with no ceremony whatsoever.